Darkness at Noon
It seems contradictory that the Russian state has people who disagree with state policies confess, then immediately execute them. The state could just execute the political prisoners and forge the prisoners' signatures on a confession statement. Even Rubashov, who has spent time in prison before, eventually confesses. "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler provides some insights into the logic of forcing confessions and staging legal trials even though the confessors will soon be executed. He shows how the state gains the confessions and how the state uses the confessions to undermine the cause of the dissidents. Further he shows how the authorities use mental and physical torture to get confessions from everyone including Rubashov. The state's goal in all of this is to eliminate anyone who does not speak in favor of the state and create fear among the rest of the population so anyone who might think…...

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Works Cited

Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941.

Darkness Visible
William Styron is an award-winning literary author whose most famous book is ironically not one of his novels, but his memoir entitled Darkness Visible. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness details the inner journey through the hell of depression. The book is a far cry from the dry, detached, and cold clinical accounts of depression in scholarly literature. A Memoir of Madness reads like a poetic narrative, but details many of the scientific underpinnings of depression. Styron researched his condition, and fuses an understanding of the clinical condition with the more important knowledge of what it is like to suffer from depression.

Styron never set out to publish a book about depression. He simply started lecturing on the subject and published an article about depression in the magazine Vanity Fair. The book is an extended version of the Vanity Fair article. The book begins with an anecdote in which Styron…...

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References

Boden, J.M. & Fergusson, D.M. (2011). Alcohol and depression. Addiction 106(5): 906-914.

Fried, E.I., Nesse, R.M., Zivin, K., Guille, C. & San, S. (2014). Depression is more than the sum score of its parts. Psychological Medicine 44(1): 2067-2076.

Leggett, A. et al. (2014). The impact of benzodiazepine use on depression outcomes among older adults beginning a new antidepressant treatment. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 22(3).

Link, B.G., et al. (2001). Sitgma as a barrier to recovery: The consequences of stigma for the self-esteem of people with mental illnesses. Psychiatric Services 52(12): 1621-1626.

Darkness and Decay ithin the alls: Poe's Architecture
Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Masque of the Red Death present a gothic setting, within which the action of the tale takes place. Each of the houses is not only decaying, but somewhat bizarre. As the tale unfolds, an unhealthy relationship between the structure and its inhabitants is revealed.

The story Ligeia takes place in two Gothic locations: first, the city on the Rhine ("dim and decaying") (p. 102) where he meets, marries and loses Ligeia, then the abbey in the "wildest and least frequented portions of fair England" (p. 102) which is in a state of "verdant decay" (p. 103). By mentioning the river Rhine, he sets the first part of his tale in Germany, the place of origin of the Gothic tradition; by making the city "large, old, decaying" (p. 97), he establishes an atmosphere of potential…...

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Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Stories and Poems. New York: Doubleday and Company.

470-3)
Here we see a man teetering between the darkness and the light. He was left the land of the bright innocence but has unfortunately stepped into the path of darkness that is filled with traps and snares for him and they will be just as difficult for him as the first one was. This is significant with darkness and light because Adam is not dark like Satan but he can no longer stand in the light of God because he is marked.

John Milton utilizes images of light and dark in "Paradise Lost" in many different ways to help us understand the story he is presenting. He begins with establishing firm principles associated with images of light and dark. The image of God and the angels certainly represent the light of Heaven while Satan and his minions represent the darkness of Hell. These descriptions are powerful and prove the author's…...

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Works Cited

Milton, John. The English Poems of John Milton. London: Oxford University Press. 1926.

Darkness
What would it take to hitch a ride on powerful winds raging against my window…

The winds that howl, roar, disturb the quiet / shake walls, calling to me… right now

"Girl, leave it all behind -- abandon shadowy ghosts in your consciousness

"Those doubts in your head…that fuming, welling up of evil intentions

"I see the stalactites of fear and stalagmites of loathing…in your mind's cavern…"

I pull the curtains apart / what wind is this that speaks to me?

What phantom rides so freely with the wind -- how can this be?

An invisible, gusty force perceives destructive demons damning my spirit?

"Speak now, vital gust, answer me, can you blow me away from this pain…

"If so, I'll forever ride with you, side with you, in the snow and in the rain…"

I pushed nose to window, watching the bold tempest tear limbs from the tree

Feeling smaller than small, wanting to be away from it all,…...

Physics and physiology say that such a feat is impossible, yet such accomplishments are documented on a regular basis.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's book the Power of Positive Thinking, defines and explains the ability to use the mind, program the brain, to achieve one's goals. This book has sold over seven million copies and is translated into fifteen languages. Many salespeople and marketing executives have this book in their office.

The Power of Positive Thinking upholds the concept of Beyond the darkness of the clouds lies the brightness of the sunlight. Dr. Peale embraces the concept that the basis of most problems is self-doubt. He also teaches that happiness and success are both habits that must be practiced until they are a part of the subconscious. They must be programmed into the brain.

This is the reason that I referred to my dad's quote as a fortuitous gift. The routine, optimistic programming…...

Heart of Darkness
The Second to Last Paragraph of "Heart of Darkness"

The second to last paragraph of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" delivers the ultimate irony of the novella -- that the so-called "civilized" world, represented by Kurtz's Intended, has no idea of the "horror" that lies at the heart of man, when he gives himself over to his savage impulses.

Marlowe travels to pay his respects to the Intended and she, in her naivete asks Marlowe about Kurtz and how he died. Marlowe expresses his opinion earlier in words to the effect that Kurtz got what he deserved -- but the full meaning and significance of this expression is lost on the Intended, who remembers Kurtz fondly. She would not recognize the man that Marlowe met deep in the heart of Africa.

She begs Marlowe to tell her Kurtz's last words. Those last words -- "The horror! The horror!" -- he cannot say,…...

Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin. Specifically, it will look at the book with a critical feminist approach. The Gethenian society seems perfect at first, but the lack of warmth in this cold world is a sad statement about relationships, and the lack of them.
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS

Ursula Le Guin's book, "The Left Hand of Darkness" won the Nebula and Hugo awards for science fiction, and many critics have praised the prose and sensuality of the book, which tells the tale of the planet Winter, and the Gethenians who populate the planet. The Gethenians are androgynous, and their sex lives are discussed quite frankly in the book. When they go into "kemmer," they can choose their sex and become sexually active, and during the rest of the month, they look human, rather than male or female. "Normal individuals have no predisposition to either sexual role in…...

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Bibliography

Attebery, Brian. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace Books, 1969; reprint ed., with new introduction by the author, 2000.

Palumbo, Donald, ed. Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Spector, Judith. Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature. Ed. Palumbo, Donald. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. 207-207.

Therefore, the investigator unwittingly admits that the Gethenian ambisexuality can create egalitarianism. The investigator also admits that some aspects of Gethenian socialization might be psychologically beneficial, such as the lack of Freudian-like psycho-sexual complexes and the lack of potential for rape. Most notably, the investigator observes one of the main themes of the Left Hand of Darkness: the limitations of a dualistic worldview. The division of the world into binary opposites, and ascribing those binary opposites to two halves of the human race, can lead to some negative consequences. Therefore, although Gethenian androgyny feels threatening or frightening at first, it is ultimately shown to be beneficial to the collective and individual consciousnesses.
Ong Tot Oppong cloaks her prejudices in scientific babble: "Their ambisexuality has little or no adaptive value," he states (89). Such an assumption is utterly laughable; not only do most biological functions have at least a tiny bit…...

Images, and Metaphors of Lightness and Darkness within Michael Ondaatje's Novel in the Skin of a Lion.
Motifs of lightness vs. darkness, in physical and emotional as well as metaphorical respects, run throughout Canadian emigre author Michael Ondaatje's post-modernist novel set in Toronto, the 1920's, In the Skin of the Lion (1987). The frequent interplay of the motifs of lightness and darkness is intricately woven throughout the structurally fragmented text. Michael Ondaatje's central character within the story is a 21-year-old new arrival to Toronto from rural Ontario named Patrick Lewis, a young man who feels emotionally hollow and who is in search of himself. Simmons (1998) observes that Patrick describes himself, vis-a-vis other characters in the story, as 'nothing but a prism that refracted [the other characters'] lives' (157). Other descriptive uses of lightness and darkness, as motifs, images, or both, abound within the story as well. Later on, for…...

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Works Cited

Lowery, Glen. "The Representation of "Race" in Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion." In Thematic Issue: Comparative Cultural Studies and Michael

Ondaatje's Writing. Steven Totosy de Zepetnek (Ed.). [n.d.].

Retrieved August 4, 2005, from:

For example he often found himself wondering whether the Africans could not be considered humans equal to the whites since they experienced human emotions and issues too. At one point in the story, Marlow was surprised and curious as to why the cannibals accompanying him on the trip to see Kurtz never considered devouring him and the white pilgrims since they outnumbered the whites. This situation, as well as others throughout the story, often led him towards thinking deeply about these matters. Based on the novella, it is possible to describe Marlow in a few sentences. Basically, he could be described as a wandering seaman who loved to travel for its own sake and who often found himself thinking deeply about the peoples and places he visited. He was also an avid storyteller, who was able to vividly describe Africa's environment and peoples to a great extent....

Behavior of Two Main Characters From Two Different Books
There are both similarities and differences between the protagonists of the Novels 'Lord of the Flies" (Golding) and "Heart of Darkness" (Conrad). In each case we have the supposedly 'civilized' individual(s) degenerating into savagery. As well, other characters are involved and highly influenced by the protagonist(s). This report discusses these two books and what can be observed from comparing works of essentially different world perspectives -- one was published in 1902 and the other in 1954 -- and wholly different environments and situations. Just as a simple example, there were no airplanes in the time of Conrad's protagonist, vs. An airplane crash setting up the whole scenario for Golding's characters. This report analyses the character Kurtz from 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad, comparing him to Jack, a character in William Golding's famed novel 'Lord of the Flies'.

'Heart of Darkness', Joseph…...

Because of its strong ethical overtones and themes, Victor Hugo naturally gravitates towards imagery of light and darkness in Les Miserables. Light and darkness symbolize their respective moral poles, the binaries of good and evil, beneficence and maleficence, right and wrong. Drawing attention to ethical polarities helps the reader to better understand and appreciate moral ambiguity. The protagonist Jean Valjean epitomizes moral ambiguity, as the reader follows his journey from sin to salvation. Ultimately, Hugo shows the reader how formal systems of justice and institutions of law and order cannot accurately determine moral polarities; the human heart is far too complex. Using imagery of light and darkness, Hugo shows that most of life manifests in various shades of grey.
The Bishop is the first major symbol of light in Les Miserables, and is an overt representative of religious fortitude and spiritual salvation. “He gazed incessantly beyond this world through these fatal…...

The book is a reflection towards a packed society we live in these days where all human beings have turned a blind eye to the civil rights of the other people thinking that may be in one way or the other it can justify the current situation in the society (Silverberg 89).
Comparison

The two books highlight human race living in the future. The authors have highlighted futuristic vision of a society that humans of the today's world imagine. Peace with no wars, sharing and prosperity, no gender biases, no gender differences and freedom of choosing partners for making families is what makes a perfect world to live in. In the case of Le Guin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness', this concept has been carved out on a futuristic planet of human beings with no sexes and sex changes when they reach peak of their life cycles. Peace and fulfillment has…...

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Works Cited

Le Guin, K. Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness. Edition 40. Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2009.

Silverberg, Robert. The World Inside. Orion, 2011.

Knowledge and the ability to learn, to think, and to analyze are terrible gifts, this interpretation says, not because they are not useful or powerful but because their power is both so capable of destruction and so limited in comparison with the giver/creator of this knowledge and ability.
The clear religious elements of "The Tyger" also have bearing on this message of true knowledge and its fearsome un-attainability. The querying voice of the speaker and the progression of the poem creates something of a narrative quest for knowledge, and "natural imagery" in Blake's work "invariably serves a prophetic purpose," according to one scholar (Altizer, p. 31). In this instance, however, what the tiger (an unusual yet strong natural image) prophesizes is only the terror and the futility of advancing further in the quest to understand the tiger's maker, i.e. God. The continued bafflement of the speaker and the awe (in…...

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Works Cited

Altizer, Thomas J.J. The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake. Aurora, CO: The Davies Group, Publishers, 2000.

Blake, William. "The Tyger." Accessed 2 October 2012. http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html

Damon, S. Foster. William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols. London: Dawsons, 1969.

In order to really understand resistance in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it is important to look at all of the characters and not just the highlighted European males, such as the protagonist Marlowe, that sit at the center of the story.  That is because resistance is the undercurrent behind all of the action in the story.  The main characters are always acting against the threat of resistance by the African people who are often portrayed as victims, but are consistently offering resistance to the colonizers, as evidenced by the arrow attack by the natives on the ship. ....

Art Heist Unravels: The Case of the Stolen Masterpieces

In the annals of art crime, the recent theft of a collection of priceless masterpieces from the National Gallery has sent shockwaves through the art world and beyond. The heist, which occurred under the cover of darkness, has left authorities baffled and the public reeling in disbelief.

The Stolen Treasures

The stolen works include some of the most iconic and valuable paintings in history. Among them are "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh, "The Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci, and "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer. Their combined value....

Captivating Titles for a Global John Wayne Gacy Exposé

Chilling Explorations

Behind the Mask of a Clown: The Horrific Crimes of John Wayne Gacy
Unveiling the Dark Depths: John Wayne Gacy's Sinister Legacy
The Gacy Tapes: A Spine-Tingling Descent into Evil
Into the Abyss: The Twisted World of John Wayne Gacy
Playground of Horror: Exposing the True Nature of John Wayne Gacy

Intriguing Inquiries

The Gacy Enigma: Unraveling the Mind of a Serial Killer
Gacy's Victims: A Lost Tapestry of Lives
The Gacy Investigation: A Quest for Justice Amidst Tragedy
The Gacy Effect: How One Man Cast a Shadow Over Society
Lessons....

1. The theme of ambition in Shakespeare's Macbeth
2. The character development of Lady Macbeth throughout the play
3. The role of the supernatural in Macbeth
4. Gender roles and expectations in Macbeth
5. The motif of blood in Macbeth
6. The concept of fate and free will in Macbeth
7. The manipulation and guilt of Macbeth
8. The downfall of a tragic hero in Macbeth
9. The relationship between violence and power in Macbeth
10. The significance of loyalty and betrayal in Macbeth
11. The portrayal of masculinity in Macbeth and how it contributes to the characters' actions and motivations
12. The use of imagery and symbolism in Macbeth to....